


The Wrong Words are Sometimes the Perfect Words

by anarchycox



Series: The Beast and the Bard [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Crack, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Name Calling, Sex, happy ever after, monster fucker jaskier, monstrous geralt, mutations made more physical changes, ugly geralt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox
Summary: The mutations made a lot of changes to Geralt, size, eyes, fangs, and generally people were scared or repulsed by him.Jaskier would be quite offended if anyone ever called him something so pedestrian as 'people'Loosely canon adjacent about Geralt being confused by and falling in love with cheerful monster fucker Jaskier
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Beast and the Bard [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699132
Comments: 189
Kudos: 1826





	The Wrong Words are Sometimes the Perfect Words

“Well, everyone else had an opinion, what about you - holy hell and heaven above you are hideous,” the bard said.

Geralt was used to comments about his looks. Well, he was mostly used to people not talking to him, fleeing him in terror, never making eye contact. Monsters seldom get eye contact. He waited for the bard to move along. He hadn’t screamed or pissed himself when he saw Geralt so that was a nice change.

“That’s fucking perfect. I am going to sit next to you and hug your arm. Because that man in that other corning has been building up the courage to come confront me over a teeny tiny situation.”

And that was a very large change. “I’m sorry?”

Between one blink and the next, he had a bard clutching his arm and gazing up at him adoringly. Usually he had to spend several ducats to get a whore to give him even half that look. “My darling, my beloved. Where do we travel to next, while you use your gifts to save every fucking moron in sight and would be inclined to not save if they tried to fuck with me?” 

The bard’s voice rose as he spoke, clearly projecting into the room. Geralt saw that man in the corner stand up. “Didn’t work,” he commented.

“Oh it will, just play along like a good whatever you are.” The bard’s grip on his arm was surprisingly strong. Geralt finished his ale and was ready to head out, but when he stood up, said grip was strong enough that it brought the bard up with him. “How freakishly tall are you?” The bard asked.

“Hmm,” Geralt said and started to walk out. Apparently with a bard. And then that man got in there way. “We were leaving.” Geralt had no idea why he said we, he didn’t mean to, but the bard was clinging like a fucking barnacle. It had been 8 months since anyone that wasn’t a monster strangling him had touched him. He swore he could feel it through the armor.

“He slept with my wife,” the man growled.

“I most certainly did not,” the bard seemed very surprised. “I would never dream of ruining the sanctity of such a holy union.”

“Someone saw you leaving my house, and when I went in the missus was whistling! I didn’t even know she could whistle.”

“Then maybe you should go down on her quite delightful cunt sometime, and you’d hear whistling too.” The bard hurried out of the tavern, while the man stood there stunned. Geralt decided he was done, the bard would have run and he could get to work. He was out of town and on the only horse that he had ever found that could hold his size when he heard running. “Phew, there you are. For a giant thing you move really quickly.”

“We’ve just been walking,” Geralt said. “Go away.”

“No,” the bard was catching his breath. “Jaskier, by the way. Witcher, White Wolf, Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt of Rivia. Oh I just realized we have the same amount of names. Isn’t that funny?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said and kept moving.

“I’ll stick with Geralt, it’s the least pompous of the options. Like how I go with Jaskier instead of Viscount. Now then where are we off to?”

Geralt decided to ignore him. Like how Roach ignored when a flea bit her arse. He’d be gone soon enough. 

Then they were kidnapped and it turned out Jaskier knew how to say just the rudest things ever in Elven. Geralt was honestly a little impressed at the way the elves were just standing there shocked, that the human was speaking like that. 

“Geralt, get us out of here,” Jaskier said. The one elf hit him, and Geralt snarled.

“Leave off.” He knew his eyes were glowing and the fangs grew a little when he was especially angry which made drool happen. An elf in the corner pissed itself, but didn’t lower its weapon - not bad. “And how do you expect me to get out us of here?” he asked Jaskier.

“What the fuck is the point of fangs if they won’t bloody chew through ropes?” Jaskier was trying to wiggle free and accomplishing nothing. “Or are they magically somehow nonrope chewing fangs?”

“Will you fucking shut up, and let me rescue us?” Geralt snapped.

“I don’t see you doing well so far,” Jaskier snapped back.

“Maybe because you keep insulting their mothers.”

“I am not! I am insulting their fathers. I’d absolutely fuck their mothers,” Jaskier said and something that even appalled Geralt in Elven. This was how he was going to die, tied up to a madman. Geralt sighed and looked over.

“Just kill me,” he told the Elf. “Start a war, lead your people to death, what do I care?”

“We are already dying,” he replied to Geralt and placed his sword to Geralt’s throat. “At least then we die with honour. Is that a thing you even now about monster?”

“Excuse me?” Jaskier gasped. “I don’t see him killing random people to get revenge for the genocide of a queen. I don’t see him starving his own people, because he doesn’t understand the concept of the world being a big fucking place and maybe moving somewhere new and I don’t know rebuilding your lives and numbers so if you wage a war, you might actually win it?” The whole room went quiet. “Yeah, there you are. The freaky, scary, ugly Witcher, maybe not so much the monster is he?”

Geralt looked at the elves. “You can make a choice today to rebuild a history for your people.”

“That’s a really great line,” Jaskier whispered.

“Now is when you shut up,” Geralt whispered back. He was honestly shocked when the bard did so. He looked to the elf. “You can choose to have a future.”

They were let go and Jaskier somehow was given a lute. Geralt mounted Roach and looked down at him. “Are we done?” He looked down where a hand slapped his thigh.

“Good god, did they make your muscles stone when the fucked up your face and height?” Jaskier was poking his thigh. “And no, we are not done! I’m ready to see the world and write songs of your adventures.”

“Why?” Geralt looked down at him. “No one wants me near.” Even at home at Kaer Morhen with his brothers, they couldn’t look at him. And this whelp could. He was also still poking his thigh. “It is flesh, I’m not stone under my clothes.”

“Human flesh?” There was more poking. “Do you have scales?”

“I’m from the wolf school, if there was anything unhuman under there, it would be fur.” Fuck, now the bard was thinking things. “There isn’t fur,” Geralt growled. He wouldn’t mention that his body hair did get thicker in the winter. Jaskier wouldn’t be around in the winter.

He was around in the winter.

He was in fact around through the next spring, and the one after that, and the one after that.

The longest Jaskier left his side was a month, save last one winter when Geralt had gone home to Kaer Morhen. Geralt did not like those months. They were too quiet, made him realize how lonely he had been. People went back to being scared of him when Jaskier wasn’t around. When Jaskier was around, he got to stay in inns, eat without as much bother in taverns. He got touched. Jaskier had ruined him for whores, because they always had to brace themselves, prepare to touch him. Jaskier touched him naturally, casually.

He missed that too.

And as he waddled through town covered in just everything wrong, he worried. Because he was sure that villager who saw him get eaten would think he was dead. And he didn’t want Jaskier upset like that. People were giving him a wider birth than normal and today it didn’t bother him at all, he had to get to Jaskier. He went into the building and there were gasps and shock and Jaskier just looked up and snickered. “Aww, you got yourself all made up and pretty for me.”

The room seemed to freeze, waited for the monster to snap and snarl. “You can pay Jaskier, I need to find a river to bathe in.” 

“Already got us a room, Geralt,” Jaskier was writing furiously not looking up. “You need about five baths. You are already hideous, we aren’t adding oogey to it.”

“Where?” Geralt said. 

“Third on the right,” Jaskier said waving to the stairs and Geralt went up. A couple creaked ominously under his feet. Wood stairs were a bit of a problem. Why he missed Kaer Morhen. There it was stone and he was sure he weight wouldn’t collapse the steps. He went to the room and it was one of the nicer they had had. He didn’t want his clothes to ruin that niceness and stripped down. He went to the bath and there were a few buckets of cold water. Still better than a river. There was a knock on the door. He grunted, figuring it was Jaskier, only it was servants with hot water. And he was naked. Fuck.

Sure enough one screamed, and one ran from the room and he could hear retching in the hall. He held his hands in front of himself.

“Oh seriously the smell isn’t that bad. It is just blood and guts and shit. Any tavern smells like that at the end of the night.” Jaskier stepped into the room. He looked over. “I see. Well, then, scoot along.” Jaskier picked up the buckets and added them to the bath. “Did you have to be naked?”

“Yes, that is how you bathe.” Geralt got into the water. He sighed the water that was added was almost boiling. “That was unpleasant.”

“Yes she did have a shrill scream,” Jaskier said, “I’m going to get you more hot water, it will be do or three buckets to get that hair clean. Can’t have your best feature icky for the royal gala tomorrow night.”

“The what now?” Geralt shouted after him. But Jaskier waved a hand and was gone.

Geralt deeply regretted having somehow acquired a friend. But then when those fingers were in his hair cleaning it, massaging his scalp he didn’t regret it so much. “Why?”

“Why what? Why am I so talented? Why are you so scary looking? Why does the sun rise?”

“Because you studied and practiced all your life, because I took potions that killed dozens around me, and because the planet spins around the sun.” Geralt looked at him. “Why are we going to a royal party?”

“Because they have paid enough we are staying in actual inns until winter and you disappear on me.”

“I disappeared for one winter.”

“Yes, last one, and I did not care for it,” Jaskier said. “And I assumed having done it once you’ll do it again. Also what the fuck is this hideous scar on your shoulder, the skin healed poorly and all raised and bumpy. It is repulsive.”

“I had to sew myself back together. You were at that bard competition.” Jaskier was quiet, which was worrisome. Geralt turned and looked at him and Jaskier looked sad. He never liked it when Jaskier looked sad. “You were right. I should use my fangs to chew through ropes more.” He thought that would make Jaskier laugh, but he still looked sad. “I’m fine, Jaskier.”

“I know I can see that. Scary eyes, ugly fangs, stupid huge just everything. All the grotesque in all its right places.”

“Why when you call me ugly and monstrous does it always sound so different than everyone else?” It never hurt when Jaskier said the words, not like other people.

“Because you know that I see the true beauty of your soul, and that just shines through and makes you beautiful. Oh my heart, my love, do you not understand through the eyes of love that you are the most -” Geralt reached out and pulled him into the tub and pushed his head under the water. He let him come up after a moment. “Bit too much?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt dunked him again. When he let him up, Jaskier was on his lap. That was odd.

And it felt right. 

He put his hands on Jaskier’s hips. “Jaskier, tell me.”

“I had a wet nurse. She sang me these sagas. Dreadful voice, but all heart. Stories of knights and heroes, fighting monsters. Glorious victory and all that. And all I could ever think was, what is the monsters side of the story? Maybe they were just minding their business, and whammo knight chopping them into bits. Always felt wrong. So wrong in fact that I was a grave disappointment to my family and didn’t take up the sword. I went to school and I started to travel. Heard the tale of the Butcher of Blaviken, who didn’t? And each town the legend of how ugly you were grew. And I knew it had to be horseshit, no one could actually be that ugly.”

“And you met me? And it was proven right.”

“No, I heard one more tale. That there was a town where this butcher didn’t kill the monster, because it wasn’t monstrous, it was trying to feed its baby. You were the first hero, the first grand knight to actually see when a monster isn’t a monster. And I knew if I ever met you, I would follow you to the ends of the world to write your story.” Jaskier pushed his hair back. “Then I met you. The stories of your ugliness were exaggerated, though not by much.”

“But you aren’t repulsed.”

“No, I’m not. I look at you and I know the parts are wrong.” Jaskier picked up Geralt’s hand. His was half the size. In general Jaskier was about half his size and he was a well built man. “You are distinctly unappealing, unless you find the unappealing appealing.”

“And you do?”

Jaskier just shrugged. “You would hate it if I called you beautiful, or talked about your inner beauty, which by the way is actually fucking there.” Jaskier got out of the tub and stripped down. Geralt didn’t pretend he wasn’t watching. “But if I started talking about your noble soul, and that giant heart you keep hiding, you’d be annoyed.”

“You annoy me all the time.”

“In ways you understand. And you know that when I say you are unattractive, you know that I mean it objectively, not personally. Sort of like how you shit on my music all the time, but also sleep better if I am singing to you.” 

Geralt could understand that. He looked at Jaskier standing there, casually naked. “Do you find me too ugly to fuck?” he asked.

“Oh, dear heart, I get to get my hands on someone who is a monster and a knight all rolled into one, we’re never leaving the room, and I want to perform at this party.”

“I don’t actually have to go to this do I?”

“Yes, you will stop husbands from killing me, for past indiscretions, not going to have any now that you asked me to be your paramour.”

“Never use the word paramour again,” Geralt ordered. 

“But I have nice clothes for you.”

“To pretty me up?” He smiled to make the fangs be exposed.

“No that can never happen, I’m just in the mood to see you in something different.” He went and held up the clothes.

“They have buttercups on them.” Geralt looked at him.

“So I am laying claim on you. Someone there might get drunk enough or wagered enough to try to bed you. My monster.”

Geralt would have flushed at that possessiveness if he could. He got out of the tub, and Jaskier was staring just as Geralt had been. “Well?” Geralt asked. They had seen each other naked many times over the years. But tonight was different.

“Does it do anything?”

“It is a dick, yes it does things,” Geralt huffed. 

“Do it do bizarre things, like how your body hair gets thicker when it is cold, how your eyes can see in the dark, the fangs. The whole bigger than every man on the goddamn planet thing?”

“It is a dick, it pisses, and it gets hard, and it comes and gets soft again.” Geralt looked down at himself. “Are you disappointed?”

“By the look of it no. By what it is capable of? Well we’ll find that out after the party.” Jaskier grinned at him. “Get dressed.”

They sat outside the large keep. They had been offered a bed in the keep and both agreed getting the fuck gone was a good idea. They just sat there. “We’re going to have a baby,” Jaskier finally said. “Do you think she’ll have your eyes or mine? Clearly we want her to take after my looks, because well you, but hopefully she’ll have your moral compass.”

“Why do you keep saying she?” Geralt couldn’t look at him, just leaned against the stone and looked up at the sky. Jaskier crawled into his lap and leaned back against him. Geralt wrapped his arms around him. “We’ll never come for the child.”

“You know we will one day. And I say girl, because I always wanted one.”

“A girl will be too scared of me.”

“Two of her parents are monster fuckers,” Jaskier said. “Me and Pavetta, dedicated monster fuckers. So I mean a bit of fearlessness will be bred into that baby.”

“Three, Duny fucked Pavetta and there is something going on there.”

“Wait, wait wait. Geralt, have you ever fucked anything monstrous? Or is my monster in fact the only non monster fucker in the lot of us?”

“It isn’t actually our baby,” Geralt said.

“No, I know. But still, a funny little dream isn’t it? Us wandering the world, me singing, you murdering, a baby slung to our back?”

“A funny little dream,” Geralt agreed.

“Oi, you two shove off, no drunkards sleeping against the keep!” A guard shouted.

They moved on. 

*

He and Yennefer stared at each other. He could fuck her, because she was interested, he knew that look. She wanted to fuck him because of adrenaline, intrigue, something else. Geralt didn’t know, she was hard to read. That was rare for him. She didn’t care what he looked like, or she did but it was something else. She could barely straddle his hips and was reaching for the buckle of his belt. 

Geralt gently picked her up and put her to the side. “Don’t fuck with djinn again,” was what he said.

He walked out and saw Jaskier on his knees. Fuck, the sorceress said he was fine. Geralt hurried over. “Jaskier,” he said and was touching him, checking him over. “Are you fine?”

“No, I am not fine, I thought your disgusting ass died in there!”

“My ass is actually one of the attractive things on me, you’ve said that multiple times,” Geralt pointed out. 

“Shut up! I almost lost you because of a crazy sorceress! Because you what wanted the pretty girl to like you?”

“No, because she saved your life and you are the only person who has ever mattered to me!” Geralt roared at him.

“Look you monster, new rule! No running after insane people ever again!” Jaskier roared back. He even pushed which didn’t move Geralt a bit. “Use those freaky eyes to see what is right in front of you!”

“I see you, I always see you, You are the only insane person I'll ever run after,” Geralt swore. He picked Jaskier up and slammed him into the stone wall of the keep. His hips were holding Jaskier up and pinned. He kissed him, dragged the fangs over his throat knowing how much Jaskier loved that. Fuck he was so hard, between Yennefer being arousing, the relief of Jaskier being fine, the adrenaline and everything, he wanted Jaskier so much. “I see you.”

“You better, what else the point of those eyes?”

“I thought to find picks you dropped in the woods?” He undid his pants and just tore off Jaskier’s. “We’ll steal you pants from the keep.” He checked Jaskier’s doublet. Even when dying and in a coma, the man hadn’t lost the bottle of oil he kept in there. “Slut.”

“For my monster, always,” Jaskier swore. Promised. 

Geralt slicked a finger and pushed it into Jaskier. Jaskier kept talking, as he always did about how much he loved Geralt’s fingers, and it made Geralt’s head swim all the words of praise that he spewed out. This was when Jaskier used words strung together that he never thought would fit together. _Beautiful monster, delicious brute, perfect beast, beloved darkness_. Words that made him desperate and hungry and Jaskier always gave them. He always gave himself.

Geralt slicked his cock and pushed into Jaskier and adored how Jaskier cursed and complained as he always did, even as he was trying to push down to get more. Geralt slid all the way he could into Jaskier, which wasn’t all the way not at this angle and not with the scant prep they did, but it was enough. They rocked together, and Geralt sank his teeth into Jaskier’s shoulder. He had permanent marks from Geralt’s teeth there, and Geralt thought he should regret that he marked the human like that but he couldn’t. Jaskier was calling him all those perfect words and Geralt found himself slowing. 

He stopped moving his hips and looked at Jaskier. “No dying on me.”

“It will happen one day,” Jaskier pointed out quietly.

“No dying on me, until we can deny time no longer,” Geralt amended. “And I’ll find a way to deny it as long as possible.”

“Well, you could always scare time away with your ugly face,” Jaskier grinned at him, and Geralt slapped a flank and resumed rocking. He buried his face into Jaskier’s neck. 

“Stop trying to look all smug at Yennefer, focus on the fucking,” Geralt said and when he was sure he had Jaskier’s attention he began to fuck in earnest. He made Jaskier scream, and he spilled into his bard. He looked over at Yennefer and perhaps Geralt was looking a little smug too.

*

Geralt yelled at the top of a mountain.

He was relieved that Jaskier was waiting for him at the bottom. “Jaskier.”

“I will find it quite ugly of you if you apologize right now,” Jaskier said, and it was the firs time he had ever said the word ugly the way the rest of the world did. They gathered their things, and Geralt took them to the coast. They fucked and Jaskier sang and after a few days, when it was late and Jaskier was draped over his chest, both of them sweaty from Jaskier fucking Geralt as hard as he could, Jaskier whispered, “Now.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said.

They were quiet.

“The time is coming,” Jaskier pointed out.

“Go to Kaer Morhen, they’ll keep you safe,” Geralt said.

“How? They won’t believe me or let me in.”

Geralt took off his wolf medallion and put it around Jaskier’s neck. “They will, if you are wearing this.”

“Most people exchange wedding bands,” Jaskier said, and Geralt could hear and smell the happy tears. 

He held Jaskier close. “I hope our child surprise has your eyes,” Geralt teased.

Jaskier just pummeled him with a pillow.

When they threw Geralt into the dungeons they tried to take the lute string that was tied around his wrist off. He ripped a man’s throat out with his fangs for trying to touch it. He then settled into a meditation. It was coming soon. Something.

He opened his arms, and Ciri ran into them. It was hard to tell if she was a small thing, or it was just because he was so huge, but she barely reached his belly button. “Geralt,” she said.

“Daughter,” he found himself saying. “We have a long journey.”

“Where do we go?”

“Home,” Geralt replied. He took her to Kaer Morhen, not daring to stop in any village, wanting to keep her safe. They passed a wandering bard who was singing a Jaskier song. 

“I love that song,” she said. 

“Jaskier will sing it for you as much as you want,” he promised her.

“You know the bard who wrote it?”

“He is my bard,” Geralt explained. 

“Do all witchers have bards?” she was curious.

Geralt laughed a bit. “No, only the ones as ugly as me.”

She gasped. “You aren’t ugly! You are…” she was clearly at a loss for a word. And he let it go. As they made camp that night she blurted out, “Majestic. You are majestic.”

Geralt smiled at her. She was already in his heart. They made their way north and he realized that his home was as ugly and scarred as he was, or he had always looked like it. But he knew that the ugliness held sturdiness, steadfastness, endurance. Not bad things. The minute they were inside, he just stood there one arm open and waited.

Jaskier came running and leaped. Geralt caught him easily. “My hideous monster, what the fuck took you so long?” 

“How dare you?” Ciri shouted. “He is majestic!”

Jaskier grinned at him. “Those monster fucker genes really do win out, don’t they?” he whispered, and Geralt snorted. “Introduce us,” he demanded louder.

“Ciri, this is Jaskier my bard. Jaskier this is Ciri, my child surprise.” 

“Your bard? Your bard, you monster, I am more than your goddamn bard,” Jaskier pinched his ear. “According to the men here, you giving me your medallion was in fact a fucking marriage offer.”

Geralt nipped at his throat. He showed the wrist where the lute string was still tied. “I know,” he replied. “Get down, you are heavy.”

“Not for your stupid large arms,” Jaskier replied but slid down. “Hello, Ciri, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Why are you mean to him?” she asked thoroughly confused.

“Because he likes it,” Jaskier replied. “I never lie to him. Only person I’ve never lied to.” Geralt realized that was true. “Tonight at supper I’ll sing a song about a monster who is secretly the hero of the tale. With terrifying yellow eyes, and beastly size, and fangs, and white hair. A character I completely made up and bares no resemblance to my personal and beloved monster.”

Geralt smiled when Ciri giggled a bit. He walked into the keep, Jaskier clinging to his arm, Ciri bouncing in front curious about the keep. He kissed Jaskier’s head. “Shall we stay here a while?”

“Sounds good, I found a room with brilliant acoustics for practice. And your bed is quite comfortable. Do you know Lambert could not believe I willingly bed you? Asked if I closed my eyes the whole time.”

“Did he now?” Geralt would kill him.

“He did. What a fool, why wouldn’t I want to look at my favourite thing in the world?”

“My dick?” Geralt asked.

“Your face.”

“I’m ugly.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t my favourite thing,” Jaskier said, and Geralt could smell the truth on him.

“You are my favourite as well.” Geralt meant it. 

“Of course I am, I am perfection.”

“You have ugly knees.”

Jaskier’s gasp was so huge it caused a breeze and he began to glare. Geralt grinned at him. “Ugly belly button too, just hideous.” He took off at a brisk pace, knowing Jaskier would give chase to yell at him.

But he didn’t run. 

The white wolf, the monster, very much wanted to be caught.


End file.
